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You really do worship at the feet of government, to the point of sickness

Idolatry's infestation of modern culture is nothing short of rampant - far more so than even the most hideous of more easily discerned obscenities such as abortion. Part of the problem is that it is in the INTEREST of a government to encourage idolatry toward itself as a means of attaining and solidifying its own power. They build monuments not to God or anything truthful, but rather to themselves and encourage their subjects to venerate the same. Unfortunately there are many dupes out there who worship at the feet of the state, often unwittingly.

As Spooner so eloquently put it, supporters of governments are made up of three classes:

1. Knaves, a numerous and active class, who see in the government an instrument which they can use for their own aggrandizement or wealth.

These are the politicians, welfare whores, corporate welfare whores, bureaucrats, and other leaches of the state.

2. Dupes - a large class, no doubt - each of whom, because he is allowed one voice out of millions in deciding what he may do with his own person and his own property, and because he is permitted to have the same voice in robbing, enslaving, and murdering others, that others have in robbing, enslaving, and murdering himself, is stupid enough to imagine that he is a "free man," a "sovereign"; that this is "a free government"; "a government of equal rights," "the best government on earth," and such like absurdities.

This is where Partisan falls.

3. A class who have some appreciation of the evils of government, but either do not see how to get rid of them, or do not choose to so far sacrifice their private interests as to give themselves seriously and earnestly to the work of making a change.

This third category is, unfortunately, where most of the remainder of us are relegated for the time being. We support the government not because it is great but because it is the lesser of many evils, and as such, becomes a pragmatic though never final device to attain at least some liberty. We participate in it even though it offends us, but only to the extent that doing so will ameliorate the evils it and others inflict upon our own liberty and our own rights.